Boxing Year in Review-March 2012

The sport lost a good one, in raconteur, author and talking head, Bert Sugar, on March 25. He'd been dealing with lung cancer. Known for his Fedora, omni-present stogie and fondness for amber liquids, along with a near-endless well of tales tall and otherwise, he had been hopeful back in December. "I've learned that getting older means you get aches in places never knew you had," he told me. "I had radiation, chemotherapy, chemo-sabe.

The cancer is in remission. It's over, I've won. I'm back, by unpopular demand. I'm coming along. Half the people are rooting for me to recover, half are not. I've been an editor, lawyer, adman, writer, announcer. I've gotten away with things. This has been fun but maybe I'm paying for it. Somewhere, some way, somehow, it's going to come back and revisit you. But I don't regret a step." Sugar was 74. ----Michael Woods (Follow Woods on Twitter here)